


Something Wicked This Way Comes

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 18:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12259812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Every Halloween it's the same damn thing. This year he wantsanswers.





	Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

> For the Sumigakure Halloween prompt "witches/wizards".
> 
> Thanks to mydarlingl0ve for helping with inspiration!

It took a bit of creative dodging for Hashirama to avoid the three heavy tomes which flew in the general direction of his head. He smiled, absently waving one hand to catch the books with a string of magic and ensure they landed safely. A rather delicate glass candlestick headed towards his midsection and he caught that too. The smile grew wider when Tobirama’s head popped out of the cupboard he was violently emptying, hair in disarray and a smudge of something orange drying on his forehead.

“Where is it?” the younger man demanded.

“I think the last time I saw it was when you were preparing for that evocation for-”

“For Tsunade! Yes!” Tobirama leapt to his feet and hurled himself to the opposite side of the room, only just barely dodging the large cauldron bubbling away in the middle of the carpet. Hashirama bit his lip to keep the laughter inside. His sibling was such a composed man – except when he was practicing magic.

For being born in an age when magic was supposedly dying out, the two Senju brothers had been gifted with incredible stores of power, nearly unheard of within the last few generations. Hashirama’s magic helped him commune with nature and he largely channeled it for healing purposes. As a doctor it was rather easy to hide the secret of his true methods from the Mundanes who had long ago forgotten the existence of the more fantastic things in the world.

Tobirama’s magic, on the other hand, was much more wild. It had a habit of filling him and spilling over until he stayed awake for days on end researching a single spell, making his hair stand on end and his fingers twitch as he drew summoning circles, breaking his composure and leaving him looking like some sort of madman while he tore his own house apart looking for the correct length of yew wood. Hashirama shook his head as he watched Tobirama’s head disappear in to another set of cupboards. His brother had hurt himself on occasion during his manic episodes but that was more due to absent mindedness than anything else. His own magic would never hurt him. It was against the very nature of it.

“Is this-? No that’s maple. Nothing like yew. Useless. Oak. Hazel. Ash. Where did I leave it, it must be here. I _need_ the yew for – oh!” With a low noise of triumph he reappeared, ducking out of the cupboard with a length of yew wood somewhat longer than his hand. The expression on his face could be said to be evil, although Hashirama maintained that there wasn’t a single evil bone in his sibling’s body no matter what Izuna said.

He should really talk to Madara about this rivalry between their brothers. Preferably sometime before they ended up dueling in the streets in broad daylight.

“This is _just_ what I needed. Ha!” Tobirama reached distractedly in to a jar sitting on the mantle place, retrieving a handful of glittering blue sand and tossing it thoughtlessly in to the cauldron as he passed it. The bubbling liquid inside belched a cloud of smoke in thanks before settling back down to simmer quietly.

“Why do you need new wards, again?” Hashirama asked. Tobirama didn’t bother to look at him as he marched over to the ring of crystals he’d set up on his kitchen table. The yew slotted perfectly in to the only spot missing in the diagram he’d made with various, specifically chosen materials.

“To keep that _asshole_ off my lawn.”

Hashirama sighed. There could only be one ‘asshole’ Tobirama would refer to in that exact tone of voice. “What did Madara do this time?”

“Nothing yet! But he’ll try something soon!” The younger sounded much too gleeful, almost like he was very much anticipating an attempt of…something. “He always uses that stupid Mundane holiday as an excuse for tomfoolery. What is again? Hallows? Hallobean? Wallo-?”

“Halloween. It’s a harmless thing for the kids. You’d like it if you’d just participate one of these years; you like kids!”

“Hmph. What I don’t like is that deranged friend of yours creeping around my property every year doing Merlin knows what. For the love of ley lines, last year I caught him attempting a summoning in my backyard! And I recognized that circle, he was definitely calling something up from the lower levels!” His hands hovered over the pink and yellow crystals, charging them slowly. “And no. I refuse to celebrate anything the Mundanes do. If they get to forget that we exist then why should I have to pretend they _matter_? I have to hide my magic every other day of the year, I’m not going to reward them with candies on the one day they pretend to like it.”

The symbols in the center of his arrangement flashed once, twice, then darkened back to normal. Nodding with satisfaction, Tobirama let the glow fade from his hands and began to pick the materials from the center. Some of the sturdier woods could be reused and the thick gem in the center was as undamaged as the last dozen times he’d charged it. The more brittle woods, however, were useless now in their used up state. He flicked them out of the way to inspect his favorite lump of amber.

With a roll of his eyes Hashirama strode over to help him clean up. Things that could not be used again he removed for proper disposal, not wanting to risk Tobirama forgetting and attempting to use them again. Last time it had just been a small backlash and a slight purple tinge to his skin had been the only consequence. Who knows what might happen next time.

“You act so old and crotchety all the time,” he murmured. “You’re only three hundred years old. You don’t get to be this crotchety until you’re at least a millennium!”

“Go fall in a fire pit.”

“Brother! So mean!” Hashirama pouted to cover the smile threatening to come back. “Anyway, haven’t you ever talked to Madara about this weird Halloween thing? If he only tries to pull this kind of stuff on just this one day every year then you don’t think that maybe – oh I don’t know – there might be some kind of reason behind it?”

“Reason! When has Uchiha Madara ever listened to reason?” The crystals hummed politely as he gathered them up, fingers gently cradling them in a direct counterpoint to the way his boots stomped fitfully on his way to the front door. “He wouldn’t know reason if it stripped naked and danced in front of him.”

“I’m sure he’d like it better if you did that,” Hashirama muttered under his breath, careful not to be overheard.

Luckily, Tobirama was too busy crossing the yard to begin setting up his new wards.

Not that they did much good. Halloween being the very next day, it was only a little more than twenty-four hours later that saw Tobirama jolting off his couch when the alarms attached to his wards went off, jangling in his ear like discordant bells. The evening had been so pleasantly calm up until now. No Mundane children banging on his door begging for sweets. No nosy older brother trying to wrestle him in to being social. No stupid rival Izuna come to spit epithets in his face for however he’d managed to offend his fellow caster this time.

All that peace was ruined in an instant and there could only be one reason. Madara must be here. A scowl settled down over his features as he stormed towards the back of the house, slamming open the door and scanning his backyard with sharp eyes.

There. Just at the edge of his property, where the innocuous wooden enclosure became an enchanted living barricade, Madara was trying hard to muffle his shrieks while at the same time attempting to extract himself from the wooden jaws of Tobirama’s fence. His leg had been caught and no matter how much he swore and tugged, the enchanted planks simply clamped down harder. Tobirama wrinkled his nose as he watched.

“Uchiha!” he hollered. “Get the hell off my lawn!” Madara squawked indignantly, looking back over his shoulder with light panic on his face.

“I can’t get anywhere with this thing trying to eat my shoes! Call off your guard-beast!”

“Maybe if you weren’t a creep trying to break in to my property _again_ then you wouldn’t have to worry about your shoes.” Not a drop of sympathy was to be found in his tone. Madara snarled.

“Well _excuse me_! You’re the one who won’t listen! If you’d just sit still for five damn minutes without being suspicious of every time I so much as breathe maybe I wouldn’t have to!” Giving vent to a huffy noise of frustration, Madara gathered magic to his fingertips and smacked the mouth trying to cut him off at the knees. The semi-sentient fence gave a yowl, its jaws stretching open just enough for Madara to jerk free and tumble backwards with a yelp.

Tobirama crossed his arms, still offering no help. The fence was imbued with a portion of his own consciousness so it knew not to actually hurt Madara, just rough him up a little bit to show his lack of appreciation for this yearly stupidity.

The two of them had been clashing for centuries, Tobirama’s water-based magic clashing spectacularly against Madara’s fire. Whoever said opposites attract was clearly only thinking of magnets. The only attraction he felt for the spiky haired half-wit caster stomping across his yard was the attraction to the idea of sealing him inside a pocket dimension just for some peace and quiet.

And he was _sticking to that story_.

“You infuriating damp rag!” While not particularly cutting, Madara’s insults never failed to be amusing.

“Don’t yell at me,” Tobirama bristled back. “I’m the one under home invasion right now!” His magic swirled up inside him, crackling beneath his skin and shifting his hair like some pale entropic beast. The darkness was lit by the subtle glow of him, shining with energy just looking for an outlet. Madara gawped openly for a few moments, either fascinated or fearful. Tobirama honestly wasn’t sure one which he would prefer.

“If you’d stop setting up traps I wouldn’t have to fight my way through them!”

His eyes couldn’t decide whether to narrow or to roll. They ended up twitching and blowing out sparks that both men pretended not to notice. “The traps are meant to keep you out. As are the wards. And the barriers. And that hex I sent your way last Tuesday. Am I being too subtle?”

“Am I!?”

That gave him pause.  “You’ve never been subtle a day in your life, what are you on about now?”

“You are the _stupidest_ genius I have ever met!” Madara’s face twisted in to a rictus of indignation as he crossed the neatly cut grass to shove his face close to Tobirama’s. “It’s been _years_ and you still don’t _get it_!”

“Get what!?”

“You don’t even remember do you?” Madara shoved an accusing finger against his nose and Tobirama swatted it away.

“Start making sense! What exactly am I supposed to be remembering?”

“We _met_ on Halloween you tight-assed excuse for a magical mishap! Why do you think I show up every year on this particular day?”

Tobirama huffed, leaning back a bit and trying to pretend he was offended by Madara’s proximity rather than enticed by it. The prickly asshole had always been too pretty for his own good. Not that Tobirama was about to admit to having had any thoughts on the matter.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, feeling oddly as though he had missed something rather obvious.

“I have been trying to ask you out for years! But you always mess it up somehow! A few years ago you sent me to the Astral Realm while I was trying to invite you to dinner! The year before that I was bringing you flowers and you somehow set off a storm in my hair! You don’t even use lightning conjuration!” His hands were tracing patterns in the air, small tongues of flame dripped from his fingers as his magic overflowed with his temper.

“Last year you were summoning something from the lower levels in to my backyard! Explain that!”

“Do you know how long it took me to figure out how to summon a hellcat? How long it took to _train_ a hellcat? Because you like cats! But nooo! Senju Tobirama can’t even take the time to see the effort I put in!” Madara’s face pushed up so close to his own that the tips of their noses brushed together, matching each other scowl for scowl. “Arrogant prat!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that’s what you were doing?” Tobirama demanded, face growing hotter and hotter by the moment. “And why is it so important you do it on Halloween? There’s an entire year in between you could ask me out! Three hundred and sixty four days that happen between each occurrence of Halloween.”

“IT’S ROMANTIC, OKAY?”

Madara’s outburst silenced them both for a long moment. They stared at each other, each equally wrapped up in the cloak of their righteous irritation. They had been at odds with each other since the day they met over two hundred years ago; hate at first sight as Touka liked to say. Except that Tobirama didn’t really hate the older man, never had.

Sure, he thought the other was an asshole. And sure, he found him annoying a great deal of the time. But he also found him attractive and engaging, was fascinated each time to witness the passion with which he cast his magic, found frustration in their continued inability to speak coherently around each other. He lost his tongue around Madara more often than anything else, making up for its absence with cutting barbs and instinctive standoffishness.

The idea that Madara was trying to ask him out on the day they met because it was _romantic_ was certainly not on the list of reasons he had considered for their annual clash.

“You,” he declared in an ominous voice, “are the single most vexatious, exasperating, idiotic ass I have ever met.” Madara opened his mouth to offer what would obviously been a heated protest but Tobirama cut him off by leaning forward and removing the space between them for a first kiss that had been too long in coming. His magic swelled higher and higher, lifting both of their clothes in a spontaneous wind. “Unnecessarily complicated foolish plan!” He bit down on Madara’s lower lip. “Could have been doing this years ago!” Rough hands pulled him closer by the hips, pressing their bodies together. “You fucking asshole.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Madara whimpered against his lips, fingers digging in until there were sure to be bruises and shuddering as teeth sank in to his lips a second time.

The sentiment of ‘finally’ went unspoken by either, though they were both surely thinking it. Madara’s mouth abandoned Tobirama’s lips in favor of tracing down his throat and the younger man could feel the fire raging just under his partner’s skin, bursting to be let out and threatening to burn him to ashes.

He couldn’t wait.


End file.
